


My Soul is Yours; You Know it is

by Who_Needs_Reality



Series: there's more than space between us [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Season/Series 05, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 05:34:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14586054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Who_Needs_Reality/pseuds/Who_Needs_Reality
Summary: For a moment, all he wants is to run. Every atom of him wants with a visceral desperation to surge after her, to run and run until he catches up with her and grabs her to him and never lets go again. It’s the same nearly overpowering instinct he’d had when he’d caught sight of her for the first time after Madi told him she was alive, the same feeling like he was a magnet and she was his North Pole and he was supposed to make his way to her. All he wants is to run. But he doesn’t.He can’t.ORThere are some things Bellamy has to say to Clarke. But first, he has to get her back.{Follow up toA Tunnel of Flames; A Handful of Ash}





	My Soul is Yours; You Know it is

**Author's Note:**

> This is a follow-up to my Angsty S5 spec fic. I wasn't sure whether to add this or not because in terms of my actual speculation for canon, that definitely worked best as a standalone. But I'm also constitutionally incapable of leaving unresolved angst, so I give you part two, i.e., a soft(ish) epilogue my loves.
> 
> Title once again borrowed from The Winner's Trilogy: I snuck in another line from the series somewhere, prizes for spotting it!
> 
> And is there anything else? Anything? Anything?
> 
> Oh yeah, happy BLARKE REUNION DAY BINCHES!!!

For a moment, all he wants is to run. Every atom of him wants with a visceral desperation to surge after her, to run and run until he catches up with her and grabs her to him and never lets go again. It’s the same nearly overpowering instinct he’d had when he’d caught sight of her for the first time after Madi told him she was alive, the same feeling like he was a magnet and she was his North Pole and he was supposed to make his way to her. All he wants is to run. But he doesn’t.

He  _ can’t _ . It takes every ounce of self-control to halt once he makes to lurch forward, to stop himself from tearing after her headfirst and heart tripping. But it won’t do any good to go after Clarke with no ideas and no plan. 

Bellamy forces himself into the makeshift council tent as measuredly as possible. “Clarke’s gone,” he says “she’s taken the Eligius mission on herself.”

Abby stiffens, and Bellamy keeps his gaze averted. He thinks she probably blames him, for Clarke being left behind, but she probably blames herself more. Either way, he doesn’t have time to get into it with her right now.

Echo frowns. “So? Someone needed to go, we always said she was a viable option.”

He almost snaps that that’s not the point, that she’s risking herself and it’s  _ dangerous _ , but he bites the words back, realising how that would sound when he was the one who initially suggested Echo for the job. 

“She has no back up,” he says, turning to the whole group, “no radio. No weapons, except for the bomb.”

“That was always how it was going to be,” Octavia says, pointedly, “that’s why this plan was dangerous.”

“She’ll be fine,” Emori says, though the look she exchanges with Monty is doubtful, “she’s strong.”

“She’s survived without us for this long, she doesn’t need us running after her now,” Echo snaps.

Bellamy clenches his jaw. “So we want to just leave her?”

There’s an uneasy silence.

“Let’s take a vote,” he grits out. “We do nothing and wait to hear from her?”

Echo’s and Octavia’s hands go up straight up, the two glancing uneasily at each other, probably unused to being in accord. Another beat passes, and Murphy and Emori raise their hands too. Emori looks apologetic.

“We send someone after her?”

Raven, Monty and Harper put their hands up. 

“A tie,” he grits out, raising his own hand.

A heavy silence descends on them. Emori won’t look at anyone, Octavia fixes the space in front of her with a hard stare.

“You’re not going to help her?” a small voice asks.

Every pair of eyes in the room swivels at once to the corner where Madi’s emerged from. None of them had noticed she was hiding there.   


“Madi…” Octavia starts for her, but Madi backs away.

“She said you were her  _ friends _ ,” Madi says, frowning, her gaze darting round the room like she’s a hunted animal, “she was ready to die for you!”

“She’s doing what needs to be done,” Echo says firmly.

“You’re all going to leave her to die!” Madi shouts, “again!”

There’s a second when they’re all frozen in shock, and then suddenly Madi makes a break for it. She scrambles across the room and is almost out the door before it snaps in Bellamy’s mind that the girl wants to run  _ after  _ her, and he lunges just in time to grab her by the arm.

“Let me  _ go _ !” she yells, struggling.

“Hey,” he says, crouching low, grasping her by both arms, “ _ hey _ , come on. You running off into danger isn’t going to help Clarke.”

“At least I’m  _ trying _ to help her!” She tries to kick at him. “Do you even care what happens to her?”

“ _ Yes _ !” he shouts, loud enough that it startles her into freezing. He shakes himself, lowers his voice. “Yes, of course I care, Madi. But Clarke decided to go and if we want to help her we have to do it properly.”

She hesitates, chewing on the end of her hair. “But you are going to help her.”

Bellamy can feel the others waiting, listening. 

“Yeah,” he says, “I am.”

Madi stares at him. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

She flings her arms around him then, and he squeezes her back, picking her up. He doesn’t turn to look at the others as he carries the girl outside. 

“We’ll work out a plan,” he says, “but I need you to keep yourself safe, okay?”

“Okay,” she says.

“We’ll keep an eye on her.”

He glances over his shoulder. Monty, Harper and Raven have followed him outside. 

Bellamy smiles at Madi. “Go,” he says, “hang out with Monty.”

She nods and walks off, Monty and Harper flanking her and talking to her as they go.

He straightens, turning properly to face Raven.

“I was going to come to you with this anyway,” she says, “after the meeting. But you made it dramatic so well done.”

He snorts. “What have you got?”

It turns out what Raven has  _ got  _ is a map of the Eligius camp, with secret entrances and guard schedules marked out on it -- something Zeke had given her.

Bellamy stares at it a little in awe. As is usually the case with Raven’s solutions, it’s pretty much exactly what they need. 

She shrugs it off. “I would have given it to Clarke,” she says, “if she’d, you know. Waited.”

He manages a smile at that. “I’m sorry,” he says, sobering, “I know this is hard for you -- working against Zeke.”

“You know I’d put you guys first right? Every time.”

“I know,” he says. “That doesn’t make it easier.”

Raven shrugs. “It doesn’t.” 

They stand there for a moment, looking at nothing.

“This time,” she says fiercely, “we get her back.”

“We get her back,” he agrees.

*

He finds her just after the bomb goes off. There’s an old collapsed garage just within the perimeter of the camp from which he’s staking out the guards, and he hears blast, sees them burst into panic as they see the explosion. Bellamy scans the scene desperately, his heart pounding harder with every second he can’t see her. He just needs her to have made it out of the impact zone before detonation, that’s it.

_ Come on _ , he thinks,  _ come on, come on, come on _ .

In the second before he almost loses it, almost says  _ to hell with it  _ and forces his way out of hiding he sees it, the flash of blonde, the dart of movement. Clarke’s moving as quickly as she can in a low crouch, away from the mayhem. She’s getting closer, closer, and -- his hand darts out and grabs her, tugging her to the ground.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” she hisses as she stumbles, “what the hell --  _ Bellamy _ ?”

“ _ Shh _ ,” he presses a finger to his lips, then maneuvers his way carefully out of the garage. He grasps her hand and tugs her behind him, following the escape path he’d worked out from the map. Thankfully, Clarke goes with it, trusting him enough not to question it.

They reach the treeline outside the camp when he feels her tug on his hand, and she nods her head in the other direction. As silently as they can, they make their way to wear Clarke has parked the rover, nestled as best she can hide it between some bushes. She slips into the driver’s seat and he climbs in the other side, and she pulls away as fast as she can make the vehicle go. 

He doesn’t break the silence until the camp is at least a mile behind them.

“ _ If you die, I’ll survive _ ,” he forces the words out through gritted teeth, “ _ that’s  _ your excuse?”

Clarke keeps her gaze steadily forward. “I got into the cryo chamber,” she says like she hasn’t heard him, “it was tight but I managed to set up the bomb and make it out of the blast zone in time. I nearly ran into a guard but he didn’t see me. By the time--”

“Clarke,” he growls, “you shouldn’t have done this alone.”   


“Well I did,” her tone has an edge to it, “and it worked.”

“And if it hadn’t? You think making a speech and marching off makes it okay if you die?”

“I seem to remember that being the attitude you took,” she grins sidelong at him.

He doesn’t take the bait. “When are you going to stop acting like you have to do something like some kind of rogue agent? We’re here now, Clarke and we can work through these things together!”

Clarke glares at the steering wheel like it’s the one speaking. “We all came up with the plan together and it worked. Everything worked out, Bellamy, why can’t you just let it go?”   
The flare of fury bursts from him in one go. “You could have  _ died _ !” He slams his hand on the seat. “You did the last time we made you go on a mission by yourself! You said you’d do it and we thought you died!”

He thinks she’s going to respond, she’s turning her head to face him, but then a clap of thunder booms overhead and she swears.

“We have to get to shelter,” she says, “we won’t last long in this.”

“Black rain?” he asks.

“Close enough to it,” she says. “There’s a cave, not too far from here. It’s runs deep enough in that we can wait it out. Madi and I used it on hunting trips a few times.”

“We’re not done talking about this,” he grunts.

“Fine,” she snaps, speeding up the rover as much as she can.

*

She’s right, the cave  _ is  _ close by -- they reach in 10 minutes, and hurry to cover the rover in tarp and dash into the cave just as the first drops start to fall.

It’s dark inside, but he can just make out the shape of a small crate that serves as a table and some rolled up blankets -- she and Madi have made their shelter cosy. Clarke fiddles round with a small lamp and a flint until the cave is suddenly awash in flickering candlelight.

They can see each other then, standing right in front of each other, shadows dancing across each of their faces.

_ She looks so soft _ , he thinks,  _ I left her behind to get weathered down by the whole world. And she still manages to look soft _ . The sigh he lets out is juddering, ragged, all the fight leaving him in a single breath. 

“Well?” he asks, but his voice comes out quieter, more plea than challenge.

Something in her expression crumples. “Bellamy,” she says, looking tired, weary to her bones, “if I’d been dead nothing would have changed. You’d still have your… your family. You guys are strong, smart. You’d have worked out how to survive, be happy. You could have settled down with… Echo. Or someone else. I don’t know. My point is, I only wanted for you to be safe and happy, and you have those things. I don’t want to fuck it up and make things difficult, alright? You don’t need me. So just, please, let me go.”

She won’t meet his gaze, won’t stop fidgeting with her hands and shifting her weight on her feet, like she’s waiting for him to turn around and let her pull away. 

_ Screw that. _

“Just… let me explain something,” he says, his voice coming out rough. His hands flutter at her sides, still struggling to believe they can touch her. “People like me… well, I’ve never been the type of guy who gets miracles, okay? They don’t happen to me. Until you came along.”

Her eyes do flit up to his then, uncertain and raw, but  _ looking _ at him. 

His hands settle on her shoulders, his thumbs grazing the sides of her neck. He can feel her pulse quicken under his touch. “I didn’t get it the first time, when you showed up to try boss me round in the dropship. And maybe I didn’t realise it for a while. But when Madi appeared out of nowhere and told me --” He has to stop for a moment, to work upto getting the words out. “I got it then, Clarke. You came back to me. You were  _ dead _ but you still came back to me. Things like that…they just don’t  _ happen _ , at least, not to me, but… you did. You’re my fucking miracle Clarke, and I’m going to hold onto you with two hands and never let go.”

She shakes her head, hard, like their lives depend on her proving him wrong. It’s so  _ like  _ her that despite the anguish on her face, he has to smile, just for a moment.

She stares at him like her heart’s being cracked open. “It’s -- I’m not the same,” she whispers, “as I was. Maybe you’re glad I survived, but 

“Bell--” she’s crying, or about to, her voice thick and her hands trembling.

“Hey,” his hands slide up so they’re cupping her face, making her look at him. “Maybe you’re right. We-- I survived without you, I had a life, I was happy. And you… you did the same. So yeah, we don’t _need_ each other to prevent us from screwing up anymore. But Clarke, if you think for one second there’s any world in which my life is better without you in it, you’re not as smart as I thought. Fuck what we _need_ Clarke, I want you. I choose you, and I’d choose you in any version of the universe, no matter how great or terrible my life was before. I choose you, Princess, out of all my people you’re the _only one_ I’ve chosen. I’m always going to choose you, so the only world in which I’m going to accept you going off alone now and disappearing from my life forever is one in which that’s what _you_ choose. Got it?”

She’s screwing her eyes tight shut to stop the tears spring from them, shaking her head, but not in a way that convinces him she doesn’t believe him.

“It -- you -- I’m not the same, Bellamy! You know that! It’s been six years, and you knew me, what, a few months? I can’t compete with that, Bellamy, I can’t come back from being six years of being a memory you’ve let go of! Whoever it is you’re remembering, whoever it is you’re saying all this for, I’m a different person now, I--”

“Clarke,” he whispers, tilting his head close to her, seeing her eye flutter shut as his breath warms her face, “I love this person.”

Her eyes snap open. She stares at him.   
“You may be pretty smart, Princess, but that doesn’t mean I’m completely stupid.”

She actually manages a smile at that, a single, soft huff of laughter, and he swears the sound burrows its way into his heart.

“I know, okay?”

“You know?”

“I know you’re different now. I know I am too. Of course we’ve changed, Clarke. But I know who you are Clarke. I see you. And I still choose you.”

Whatever resistance she’d built up, fear or anger or something else, all of it seems to crumble forward. A single, sharp sob escapes her arms come up around his waist. He draws her closer, presses his lips to her forehead, holding her there. He’s probably holding to hard, but he can’t seem to stop trying to pull her closer, the sensation of having her, warm and near and  _ real _ suddenly overwhelming. 

She buries her face in his chest, breathing him in, muffling her sobs in his shirt. The warmth from her breath and her tears seeps its way across his heart and he nestles his own face in her hair, like he can lock that warmth there forever. He realises then that she’s saying something, over and over again, pressing the words into the skin of his clavicle with her lips.

“I choose you too, Bellamy,” she says, “I’ll always choose you.”

It’ll be a day before he kisses her, winding his hands into her hair and murmuring how he likes the way she’s cut it short, and she’ll tease him about his beard, the way it’ll tickle at her cheeks and her chin. It won’t take long after that for them to make love, desperate and tender all at once, basking in the nearness, revelling in the intimacy that’s always slipped a few inches from their grasp.

Another week will pass before she tells him she loves him too, and he’ll say it back to her again, both of them sat with their hands threaded together. They’ll smile at each other, a little awed, a little dazed, neither one quite believing that they’ve finally been able to say the words, so long after they first became true.

And then after that they’ll tell Madi, their friends. War will ebb into peace, the village may be called a town. One day they’ll watch Madi as she proudly hefts her baby brother in her arms, smile as she’ll show anyone who listens that Gus has their father’s curls and their mother’s eyes.

Some nights they’ll wake clinging closer to the other than usual, remembering suddenly the way the distance felt. They’ll kiss away tears and remind each other that they’re both alive, together. Some days they’ll argue, yell in each other’s faces, storm off, but those same days they fall back into each other, unfailing, inevitable, like a tide to a beach.

It’s all coming, all of it, waiting furled up to be lived out one day at a time. They don’t know that yet, not now as they clutch at each other in a cave in a storm, buoying each other like lifeboats. But it doesn’t matter.

They have all the time in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! Drop me a comment/kudos if you enjoyed <3


End file.
